I was invited by a friend to go with her to one of those outdoor movie experiences to see ‘Grease’ one of my all time favourites. She sold it as a drive in movie experience so I agreed to drive and even got my car washed specially (which is rare!) so we could actually see through the windscreen! Imagine our surprise as we arrived at the park to discover everyone else getting out of their cars in the car park and carrying a variety of chairs, hampers, blankets, tents! etc to the field where the big screen was waiting! Luckily I had grabbed my coat on the way out, I had a rug in the car and my friend had taken a blanket. So it wasn’t ‘drive in’ at all – not at all! We left our car and found a spot on the grass between the chairs of people all in their woolly hats, padded jackets, sleeping bags and the odd gazebo.

Amused we sat and waited as a big black rain cloud approached. Luckily it blew past just depositing a few raindrops! We laughed and laughed at our obvious mistake as it got colder and colder! A hot chocolate from the refreshment tent warmed us up for a while and we still laughed at our lack of prep! See I’ve come to expect the unexpected as that’s what our life is like. But we sang our hearts out and danced away (sitting down as we couldn’t stand up as we could no longer feel our frozen feet!) -any attempt to get warm- but making the best of the situation. Then as the film came to a close, as we sat there freezing our asses off but still laughing about our misunderstanding, the final song at the fun fair reminded me of how lucky we are to be able to laugh off situations with friends.

On our most difficult, challenging days I can feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Those are the dark days. It feels like it’s never going to change. There is no end to it. There is no cure for Autism! This is it forever! I worry about the future and what will happen to Holly when we are no longer able to look after her or we’re no longer here! It depresses me. It’s dark!

But then we have those days that are fun, unexpected things happen and we celebrate successes! Ok some days are challenging and difficult but with our friends and family we get there! So it may feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel but maybe sometimes our tunnel is like the fun house at the end of ‘Grease’? The continuous revolving tunnel that may sometimes makes us fall but we will find our feet again and move on, the uneven floor of unexpected challenges that may set us back but with the help of friends we succeed!

In this bonkers, madhouse of a tunnel, there are shocks, surprises, challenges, triumphs and fun and we are lucky to share it with friends who help, support, celebrate and laugh along with us like a “Rama lama lama Ka dinga da dinga dong!” 😆😆😆

Well we had to laugh!! As you can see we were as freezing as shoo-bop sha wadda wadda yippity boom de boom!! 🤣🤣🤣

We had a great time!